South: The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition, 1914-1917
cut blubber into strips for the fire, very carefully scrape the snow
off our hut walls, and then after a perfunctory rub with an oily
penguin-skin, use it at meals. We are as regardless of our grime and
dirt as is the Esquimaux. We have been unable to wash since we left the
ship, nearly ten months ago. For one thing we have no soap or towels,
only bare necessities being brought with us; and, again, had we
possessed these articles, our supply of fuel would only permit us to
melt enough ice for drinking purposes. Had one man washed, half a dozen
others would have had to go without a drink all day. One cannot suck
ice to relieve the thirst, as at these low temperatures it cracks the
lips and blisters the tongue. Still, we are all very cheerful.”
During the whole of their stay on Elephant Island the weather was
described by Wild as “simply appalling.” Stranded as they were on a
narrow, sandy beach surrounded by high mountains, they saw little of
the scanty sunshine during the brief intervals of clear sky. On most
days the air was full of snowdrift blown from the adjacent heights.
Elephant Island being practically on the outside edge of the pack, the
winds which passed over the relatively warm ocean before reaching it
clothed it in a “constant pall of fog and snow.”
On April 25, the day after I left for South Georgia, the island was
beset by heavy pack-ice, with snow and a wet mist. Next day was calmer,
but on the 27th, to quote one of the diaries, they experienced “the
most wretched weather conceivable. Raining all night and day, and
blowing hard. Wet to the skin.” The following day brought heavy fog and
sleet, and a continuance of the blizzard. April ended with a terrific
windstorm which nearly destroyed the hut. The one remaining tent had to
be dismantled, the pole taken down, and the inhabitants had to lie flat
all night under the icy canvas. This lasted well into May, and a
typical May day is described as follows: “A day of terrific winds,
threatening to dislodge our shelter. The wind is a succession of
hurricane gusts that sweep down the glacier immediately
south-south-west of us. Each gust heralds its approach by a low
rumbling which increases to a thunderous roar. Snow, stones, and gravel
are flying about, and any gear left unweighted by very heavy stones is
carried away to sea.”
Heavy bales of sennegrass, and boxes of cooking-gear, were lifted
bodily in the air and carried away out of sight. Once the wind carried
off the floor-cloth of a tent which six men were holding on to and
shaking the snow off. These gusts often came with alarming suddenness;
and without any warning. Hussey was outside in the blizzard digging up
the day’s meat, which had frozen to the ground, when a gust caught him
and drove him down the spit towards the sea. Fortunately, when he
reached the softer sand and shingle below high-water mark, he managed
to stick his pick into the ground and hold on with both hands till the
squall had passed.
On one or two rare occasions they had fine, calm, clear days. The glow
of the dying sun on the mountains and glaciers filled even the most
materialistic of them with wonder and admiration. These days were
sometimes succeeded by calm, clear nights, when, but for the cold, they
would have stayed out on the sandy beach all night.
About the middle of May a terrific blizzard sprang up, blowing from
sixty to ninety miles an hour, and Wild entertained grave fears for
their hut. One curious feature noted in this blizzard was the fact that
huge ice-sheets as big as window-panes, and about a quarter of an inch
thick, were being hurled about by the wind, making it as dangerous to
walk about outside as if one were in an avalanche of splintered glass.
Still, these winds from the south and south-west, though invariably
accompanied by snow and low temperatures, were welcome in that they
drove the pack-ice away from the immediate vicinity of the island, and
so gave rise on each occasion to hopes of relief. North-east winds, on
the other hand, by filling the bays with ice and bringing thick misty
weather, made it impossible to hope for any ship to approach them.
Towards the end of May a period of dead calm set in, with ice closely
packed all round the island. This gave place to north-east winds and
mist, and at the beginning of June came another south-west blizzard,
with cold driving snow. “The blizzard increased to terrific gusts
during the night, causing us much anxiety for the safety of our hut.
There was little sleep, all being apprehensive of the canvas roof
ripping off, and the boats being blown out to sea.”
Thus it continued, alternating between south-west blizzards, when they
were all confined to the hut, and north-east winds bringing cold, damp,
misty weather.
On June 25 a severe storm from north-west was recorded, accompanied by
strong winds and heavy seas, which encroached upon their little sandy
beach up to within four yards of their hut.
Towards the end of July and the beginning of August they had a few
fine, calm, clear days. Occasional glimpses of the sun, with high
temperatures, were experienced, after south-west winds had blown all
the ice away, and the party, their spirits cheered by Wild’s unfailing
optimism, again began to look eagerly for the rescue ship.
The first three attempts at their rescue unfortunately coincided with
the times when the island was beset with ice, and though on the second
occasion we approached close enough to fire a gun, in the hope that
they would hear the sound and know that we were safe and well, yet so
accustomed were they to the noise made by the calving of the adjacent
glacier that either they did not hear or the sound passed unnoticed. On
August 16 pack was observed on the horizon, and next day the bay was
filled with loose ice, which soon consolidated. Soon afterwards huge
old floes and many bergs drifted in. “The pack appears as dense as we
have ever seen it. No open water is visible, and ‘ice-blink’ girdles
the horizon. The weather is wretched—a stagnant calm of air and ocean
alike, the latter obscured by dense pack through which no swell can
penetrate, and a wet mist hangs like a pall over land and sea. The
silence is oppressive. There is nothing to do but to stay in one’s
sleeping-bag, or else wander in the soft snow and become thoroughly
wet.” Fifteen inches of snow fell in the next twenty-four hours, making
over two feet between August 18 and 21. A slight swell next day from
the north-east ground up the pack-ice, but this soon subsided, and the
pack became consolidated once more. On August 27 a strong
west-south-west wind sprang up and drove all this ice out of the bay,
and except for some stranded bergs left a clear ice-free sea through
which we finally made our way from Punta Arenas to Elephant Island.
As soon as I had left the island to get help for the rest of the
Expedition, Wild set all hands to collect as many seals and penguins as
possible, in case their stay was longer than was at first anticipated.
A sudden rise in temperature caused a whole lot to go bad and become
unfit for food, so while a fair reserve was kept in hand too much was
not accumulated.
At first the meals, consisting mostly of seal meat with one hot drink
per day, were cooked on a stove in the open. The snow and wind, besides
making it very unpleasant for the cook, filled all the cooking-pots
with sand and grit, so during the winter the cooking was done inside
the hut.
A little Cerebos salt had been saved, and this was issued out at the
rate of three-quarters of an ounce per man per week. Some of the
packets containing the salt had broken, so that all did not get the
full ration. On the other hand, one man dropped his week’s ration on
the floor of the hut, amongst the stones and dirt. It was quickly
collected, and he found to his delight that he had enough now to last
him for three weeks. Of course it was not _all_ salt. The hot drink
consisted at first of milk made from milk-powder up to about
one-quarter of its proper strength. This was later on diluted still
more, and sometimes replaced by a drink made from a pea-soup-like
packing from the Bovril sledging rations. For midwinter’s day
celebrations, a mixture of one teaspoonful of methylated spirit in a
pint of hot water, flavoured with a little ginger and sugar, served to
remind some of cock-tails and _Veuve Cliquot_.
At breakfast each had a piece of seal or half a penguin breast.
Luncheon consisted of one biscuit on three days a week, nut-food on
Thursdays, bits of blubber, from which most of the oil had been
extracted for the lamps, on two days a week, and nothing on the
remaining day. On this day breakfast consisted of a half-strength
sledging ration. Supper was almost invariably seal and penguin, cut up
very finely and fried with a little seal blubber.
There were occasionally very welcome variations from this menu. Some
paddies—a little white bird not unlike a pigeon—were snared with a loop
of string, and fried, with one water-sodden biscuit, for lunch. Enough
barley and peas for one meal all round of each had been saved, and when
this was issued it was a day of great celebration. Sometimes, by
general consent, the luncheon biscuit would be saved, and, with the
next serving of biscuit, was crushed in a canvas bag into a powder and
boiled, with a little sugar, making a very satisfying pudding. When
blubber was fairly plentiful there was always a saucepan of cold water,
made from melting down the pieces of ice which had broken off from the
glacier, fallen into the sea, and been washed ashore, for them to
quench their thirst in. As the experience of Arctic explorers tended to
show that sea-water produced a form of dysentery, Wild was rather
diffident about using it. Penguin carcasses boiled in one part of
sea-water to four of fresh were a great success, though, and no
ill-effects were felt by anybody.
The ringed penguins migrated north the day after we landed at Cape
Wild, and though every effort was made to secure as large a stock of
meat and blubber as possible, by the end of the month the supply was so
low that only one hot meal a day could be served. Twice the usual
number of penguin steaks were cooked at breakfast, and the ones
intended for supper were kept hot in the pots by wrapping up in coats,
etc. “Clark put our saucepanful in his sleeping-bag to-day to keep it
hot, and it really was a great success in spite of the extra helping of
reindeer hairs that it contained. In this way we can make ten penguin
skins do for one day.”
Some who were fortunate enough to catch penguins with fairly large
undigested fish in their gullets used to warm these up in tins hung on
bits of wire round the stove.
“All the meat intended for hooshes is cut up inside the hut, as it is
too cold outside. As the boards which we use for the purpose are also
used for cutting up tobacco, when we still have it, a definite flavour
is sometimes imparted to the hoosh, which, if anything, improves it.”
Their diet was now practically all meat, and not too much of that, and
all the diaries bear witness to their craving for carbohydrates, such
as flour, oatmeal, etc. One man longingly speaks of the cabbages which
grow on Kerguelen Island. By June 18 there were only nine hundred lumps
of sugar left, _i.e._, just over forty pieces each. Even my readers
know what shortage of sugar means at this very date, but from a
different cause. Under these circumstances it is not surprising that
all their thoughts and conversation should turn to food, past and
future banquets, and second helpings that had been once refused.
A census was taken, each man being asked to state just what he would